Visit the Shut up about Barclay Perkins site

The next table covers a large area of southern England. Pretty much everywhere in the Southeast, except for London.

If you removed the Ind Coope beers the averages would look very different. A couple of examples from them are unusually strong, one even over 1040º. An exceptionally high gravity for a Mild in the post-war years.

Most of the other examples are either just above or below 1030º. Very high degrees of attenuation, however, leave almost all above 3% ABV. With the exception of London, very high attenuation seems to have been a feature of most Mild Ales after the war.

The very low FGs of these beers are even more significant when you consider that many, if not all, would have been primed with a sugar solution at racking time. Based on the practice at Barclay Perkins, which recording primings in its brewing records, the primings would have raised the gravity by 2-3º. That many of the beers have FG2 below 1005º tells me that there must have been a considerable amount of secondary fermentation in the cask.

The colours are all over the place, ranging from 20.5 (the shade of a pale Bitter) to 120 (very dark brown). Several of the breweries – Fremlin, Ind Coope and Shepherd Neame – all produced both pale and dark versions of Mild. That said, the overwhelming majority of examples are dark.


Southern Mild Ales 1949 - 1954
Year Brewer Beer Price per pint (d) OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation colour
1953 Benskins X 13 1031.5 84
1949 Brickwoods Mild Ale 13 1033.2 1004.8 3.70 85.54% 20.5
1951 Cobb & Co. X 12 1028.4 88
1951 Daniells Mild Ale 14 1029.9 1003.9 3.38 86.96% 110
1951 Flowers Mild Ale 15 1030.7 1003.9 3.49 87.30% 120
1951 Fremlin XXL 12 1029.4 22
1951 Fremlin XX 12 1030.6 60
1950 Gardner X 12 1030.0 96
1950 Ind Coope MA 12 1027.9 1008.9 2.46 68.10% 67
1950 Ind Coope Mild Ale 15 1039.2 1009.6 3.84 75.51% 75
1951 Ind Coope Ale 12 1029.4 1008 2.77 72.79% 52
1951 Ind Coope X 13 1030.9 26
1952 Ind Coope X 13 1036.7 102
1953 Ind Coope X 14 1033.4 100
1954 Ind Coope Strong Mild Ale 19 1043.5 1010.7 4.26 75.40% 110
1951 JJ Young Mild Ale 14 1030.6 1004.8 3.35 84.31% 65
1951 Morrell Mild Ale 14 1029.7 1003.7 3.38 87.54% 80
1949 Portsmouth United Mild Ale 13 1029.3 1003.1 3.41 89.42% 19
1951 Portsmouth United Mild Ale 14 1029.3 1005.1 3.14 82.59% 75
1950 Shepherd Neame X 1030.1 63
1951 Shepherd Neame X 12 1031.4 24
1951 Simonds Mild Dark Sweet 14 1031.5 1005.7 3.35 81.90% 80
1951 Tamplin Mild Ale 14 1029.9 1005.2 3.21 82.61% 70
1951 Tomson & Wotton X 12 1029.2 80
1951 Wells Mild Ale 14 1028.6 1005 3.07 82.52% 75
1951 Wells & Winch Mild Ale 14 1029.3 1008.6 2.68 70.65% 80
Average 13.4 1031.3 1006.1 3.30 80.88% 70.9
Sources:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002.
Truman Gravity Book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number B/THB/C/252.


More...